Finding the Absolutely Perfect Actor: The High-Stress Business of Casting

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Marta Kauffman and David Crane are sitting together on a long white couch, trying to find Joey.

When they sent out the "breakdown" for the casting call, they described him as a "handsome, smug, macho guy in his 20's" who loves "women, sports, women, New York, women," and most of all, himself. Now they are listening to a man who would be Joey philosophize in a smug, macho way about women and ice cream.

"What are you talking about, 'one woman?' " he says, affecting a New York accent that is part De Niro, part DeVito. "One woman? That's like sayin' there's only one flavor of ice cream for you. Let me tell you somethin', there's lots of flavors out there. There's Rocky Road and Cookie Dough and Bing Cherry Vanilla. They got kinds with fudge swirls and nougat."

In the last few weeks, the two writers have heard these lines of theirs read by some 50 Joeys, but they have yet to hear them exactly the right way. "It is very specific," explains Mr. Crane. "You are trying to find someone who somehow connects comedically with our material, who gets our jokes."

Casting, notoriously nerve-racking for actors, is hardly less stressful for television writers and producers like Mr. Crane and Ms. Kauffman. The pair have spent almost six months developing a set of sitcom characters -- a circle of friends in their 20's living in Manhattan -- and writing dialogue for them. Against great odds, they have persuaded a network, NBC, to pay to shoot a pilot episode of the sitcom, titled "Friends Like Us." The next critical step, from pilot to series, will depend largely on how well "Friends Like Us" is cast. 'It's Everything'

"In television, casting is almost everything," said Leslie Moonves, the president of Warner Brothers Television, which is producing the sitcom. "It may be more important than the script, because television is such a people medium. Very rarely will a good script get by with bad casting."

Warren Littlefield, the president of NBC Entertainment, went one step further. Casting, he said, is not almost everything; "it is everything."

The laborious casting process began the first week in March, even before Mr. Crane and Ms. Kauffman had finished writing the pilot. Eight-line descriptions of the regular characters, the "breakdowns," went out to agents in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. The agents then sifted through their clients and submitted photos and resumes of those who they thought, or at least hoped, might fit the descriptions. Some agents were more realistic than others about their clients' suitability.

"You have A agents and B agents and C agents and Z agents," Warner Brothers' senior vice president for talent and casting, Barbara Miller, said with a shrug.

For each of the six regular characters -- Joey and five friends -- the show's casting director, Ellie Kanner, received more than 1,000 glossy black-and-white photos. From these, she chose about 75 actors for each part and called them in to read a scene from the show. Those who seemed promising were called back again to read in front of Ms. Kauffman, Mr. Crane and their partner, Kevin Bright, a producer. And these were just the preliminaries.

At the end of the month, the actors who had made it through the first set of cuts -- three or four for each part -- were called back yet again to read in front of a group of Warner Brothers executives that included Mr. Moonves and Ms. Miller. They agreed to allow a reporter to sit in on this session on the condition that the actors not be identified. Formidable Portraits

The session took place in Ms. Miller's office, which is hung rather intimidatingly with portraits of Garbo and Bette Davis. Before the actors arrived, the Warners executives and the show's producers arranged themselves in a semi-circle facing a director's chair stitched with the logo from "Full House." Everyone received a list of the actors who would be auditioning and the agencies representing them. Appended to it was another list of actors who had been called but were not interested in auditioning for the show, either because they had other television deals or were not doing television or, in a few cases, because they were pregnant.

When the first actor was ushered in to read for the part of Chandler, "a droll, dry guy in his 20's," no introductions were made. Clutching his script in his hand, he arranged his tall frame in the director's chair, ran his fingers through his hair and started to speak.

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"I've had that dream," said Ms. Kanner, who was playing all of the other roles in the scene.

"Then I look down and I realize there's a phone . . . there."

"Instead of . . . ?"

"Yup."

After about two minutes, he was done. Everyone in the room nodded approval. "Good," Ms. Kauffman said. "Very good." Without any formal goodbyes, he left, and the next actor was ushered in to recite exactly the same lines. Dressed for the Part

Most of the actors came dressed for the occasion. The women who were auditioning for the part of Phoebe, a "New Age waif," wore bell bottoms and clunky shoes and nose rings. The men trying out for Joey wore shirts that showed lots of chest.

A couple of actors tried to set themselves apart by embellishing their scenes. In the script, Chandler gets a call on his "phone" from his mother, which he notes is "really weird 'cause she never calls me." One Chandler went on to add "on that line." The joke got a big laugh but did not seem to win any points with the writers. "We get kind of defensive," Mr. Crane acknowledged.

In a little over an hour, the session was over. Mr. Moonves labeled it "not a bad session, but not a great session." Some actors were termed by the group too "sitcom-y," some too theatrical. Some failed to show the sparkle they had demonstrated in earlier tryouts. The consensus emerged that only a few of the actors were ready for the next phase: auditioning over at NBC.

Before actors audition at a network, the studio negotiates what they will be paid if they get the part. The deal usually commits an actor not only to making the pilot, but also to spending five years on the series in the unlikely event it lasts that long. While fees for such commitments vary widely, it is not uncommon for an actor to receive $25,000 or more just for the pilot.

Network executives, rather than the producers, make the final casting decisions. Usually the two groups agree, but not always. And when the corporate and comic muses fall into conflict, it is generally less over truth than beauty. In these cases, studio executives, whose job is to sell the show, tend to side with the networks, reminding producers that sexiness can be a form of talent, too. 'The Crass Commercialism'

"My concern can't solely be the best actor," Mr. Moonves said. "I'm looking for people who are attractive. That's part of the crass commercialism the studios and the networks have to look at. I have to think, 'Am I going to have a TV Guide cover in six months, and what's that going to look like?' "

Casting an ensemble series like "Friends Like Us" presents one set of problems; casting a show with a strong lead character presents another. This season Ms. Kauffman, Mr. Crane and Mr. Bright are faced with both because they are also filming a second pilot, for Fox, that revolves around a 16-year-old boy.

Despite all the readings, meetings and call-backs, casting is ultimately a guessing game, and it is only when filming begins that the guess is proved wrong or right. (For the Fox pilot, shooting starts in about a week, for the NBC pilot at the end of the month.) The cast of a pilot frequently changes right up to the moment of filming, and sometimes beyond.

"You can be into production and see that first take and realize you made a mistake," Mr. Bright said. If deemed serious enough, the "mistake" is likely to be dismissed. And then the whole process starts all over again.

A version of this article appears in print on April 6, 1994, on Page C00013 of the National edition with the headline: Finding the Absolutely Perfect Actor: The High-Stress Business of Casting. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe